is a Japanese pop singer and former member for Japanese girl group

Morning Musume , formerly simply and colloquially referred to as , are a Japanese girl group, holding the second highest overall single sales (of a female group) on the Oricon charts as of February 2012, with the Oricon record of most top ten singles with an ...

. She is now a TV talent and planning to debut as an actress.

History

Morning Musume and Hello Project

Joined the girl group

in 1998. She, along with

Mari Yaguchi is a Japanese singer, actress, and television personality. She joined the girl group Morning Musume in 1998 as a second generation member and was the leader of subgroups within Hello! Project, such as Mini-Moni, Morning Musume Sakuragumi, and ZY ...

and

Kei Yasuda is a Japanese singer, musician and actress under the Hello! Project. She was a member and co-leader of the Japanese girl group Morning Musume. Yasuda, along with Mari Yaguchi and Sayaka Ichii, were the second generation of singers to be recru ...

, formed the second generation of members. While in Morning Musume, Sayaka Ichii was put into the spin-off group,

Petitmoni was a sub-unit of the Japanese idol girl group Morning Musume and associated with Hello! Project. It was formed by Up-Front Promotion in November 1999 as the second sub-group of Morning Musume. History Founded November 1999, the group initi ...

with

Maki Goto is a Japanese singer, lyricist, and former actress. Born and raised in Edogawa, Tokyo, Goto began her musical career in 1999 when she joined Morning Musume as the only third generation member. Her first single with the group, " Love Machine", t ...

and

. Ichii was also part of the

Hello Project! Summer Shuffles was a Japanese idol project group formed by Up-Front Promotion in 2000 and associated with Hello! Project. Beginning in 2000, the Shuffle Unit project was a yearly collaboration among existing Hello! Project acts, where members were recombined ...

2000 group Aoiro 7. She also recorded a folk song album with

Yuko Nakazawa is a Japanese pop and enka singer, and actress, best known as one of the original members of the all-female J-pop group Morning Musume. She is also a member of Japanese pop group Dream Morning Musume. Biography Yuko Nakazawa was born in Kyo ...

. She left Morning Musume in May to continue her education.

After Morning Musume

Sayaka Ichii graduated from Morning Musume and

Hello! Project is a Japanese musical collective consisting of all female recording artists and groups under Up-Front Promotion, a subsidiary of Up-Front Group. The name was initially used as Michiyo Heike and Morning Musume's fan club name in 1999, but has s ...

after the single "

Happy Summer Wedding is the ninth single of the J-pop idol group Morning Musume, released on May 17, 2000. It sold a total of 990,950 copies, becoming a number-one hit in Japan. History This also marks the last single of Sayaka Ichii and the debut of the "Fourth Gen ...

" in 2000. A year after she left, she formed the group ''Ichii Sayaka in Cubic-Cross'', trio with Taisei (keyboardist from

Sharan Q was a Japanese rock band composed of lead singer , on guitar, on drums and on keyboards. Biography They debuted with in 1992. They were not an instant hit initially, but their fourth single broke the top 50 of the Oricon charts. Even ...

), and wrote two of their songs. In 2003, Cubic-Cross disbanded, and after a solo single She retired from the music business at the end of the year. In February, she joined Ranves Management agency.on August 30, she returned to TV in a TBS show called Sunday Japan.

Personal life

Ichii announced in 2004 that she was pregnant and was to marry the group's guitarist, Naoki Yoshizawa. The couple had two daughters but divorced in 2011. Ichii later remarried and gave birth to her son.

Discography and releases

Albums

;Duet with Yuko Nakazawa * ''Folk Songs'' (November 29, 2001) ;Ichii Sayaka in Cubic-Cross * ''C:BOX'' (November 20, 2002)

Singles

;Sayaka Ichii in Cubic-Cross * Jinsei Ga Mou Hajimatteru (April 24, 2002) * Shitsuren Love Song (July 17, 2002) * Todoke! Koi no Telepathy (November 9, 2002) * Zutto Zutto (May 1, 2003) ;Sayaka Ichii * 4U ~Hitasura~ (September 3, 2003)

DVD

* Folk Days (February 28, 2002)

Photobooks

* Self (February 10, 2002)

External links

Up-Front Works Official Discography Entry
(Japanese)
Sayaka Ichii's Blog
(Japanese) 1983 births Living people Morning Musume members Petitmoni members People from Funabashi Japanese women singers Japanese women pop singers Japanese child singers Japanese idols Japanese female idols Japanese female models Musicians from Chiba Prefecture {{Japan-singer-stub